craziest Dirty Rushing story?

[howtheSunrose]

A few years before I rushed, a senior (obviously someone who should know better) locked a PNM in a bathroom at a party with some of her sisters and tried to convince her to go XYZ. Needless to say, she'd didn't pledge them.

[kathykd2005]

Originally Posted by howtheSunrose

A few years before I rushed, a senior (obviously someone who should know better) locked a PNM in a bathroom at a party with some of her sisters and tried to convince her to go XYZ. Needless to say, she'd didn't pledge them.

That is seriously SCARY. When I was an undergraduate, there was a sister of a GLO that will remain nameless that stood outside a residence hall drunk, screaming at a PNM that "XYZ is the BEST! If you don't go XYZ, you won't have any friends." They definitely got a fine for that.

[AGDee]

The worst cases I see are when most/all of the chapters on campus are far below Total (because Total is too high). It leads to many cases of PNMs being encouraged to drop out of formal recruitment and go through COB because they are better able to guarantee them a spot that way. It becomes quite obvious when 10 women drop out of recruitment and then all immediately go through COR with the same chapter.

[andrea981]

Originally Posted by AGDee

The worst cases I see are when most/all of the chapters on campus are far below Total (because Total is too high). It leads to many cases of PNMs being encouraged to drop out of formal recruitment and go through COB because they are better able to guarantee them a spot that way. It becomes quite obvious when 10 women drop out of recruitment and then all immediately go through COR with the same chapter.

That was the case with the recruitment on my campus. Not one sorority has been able to maintain chapter total for more than a semester -- ever! However, there are only 3 sororities and the two largest do not want to lower chapter total, obviously.

Basically the dirty rushing I saw was basically gotten away with because the girls in those two largest sororities always claimed that they "didn't understand that rule" or "I thought the rule was X, not Y" and they have never had any types of sanctions for their misbehavior. In my day one sorority invited a fraternity to co-host a COB event. Another time, we were all told that we could not go to this huge fraternity party that was going on the night of preference and half of one of the sororities attended and had all sorts of "unofficial" communication with PNMs. Other times the sorority members would just make things up about the other sororities like "Don't pledge ABC chapter, they are all lesbians" (we had one lesbian member) or "Don't pledge ABC chapter, they don't let their members drink."

I just started advising my chapter as an alum, after having been out of the area for the past 5 years. I am sad to say that things have not changed and the dirty rushing seems to continue without the other sororities ever getting punished or sanctioned.

What are some ideas on how other panhellenic chapters have sanctioned for things like that?

[Kevin]

Too many stories to count.. most of these things happened many, many times. Aside from the obvious infractions where members of other fraternities would escort their potentials into and out of our house to get their bid cards stamped, there were rumors spread about our horrific hazing practices (something about a tub full of urine).

Many years, it seemed we were the only group who really cared about the rules of recruitment.

[NutBrnHair]

One of my dear, older friends told me that when her brother arrived on the train to attend Ole Miss as a freshman in the 1930s, he got off the train wearing his Sigma Chi badge.

[FuzzieAlum]

But back in the day, I don't think it was unusual for bids to be given out before school even started. (Although I know nothing about Ole Miss in particular.)

[AngieWashU]

According to the book Bound by a Mighty Vow, the reason the term "rushing" was coined was because for the sorority and fraternity members rushing to the incoming to trains to pin/pledge the members they wanted.

[sarasmile]

I was on Panhel exec when I heard about this one...

There was a chapter on our campus which had a reputation for taking only wealthy girls. I'll call it "XYZ". (2 members of this chapter happened to be on Panhel Exec with me, BTW.)

That year, a young woman with a very recognizable family name went through rush at my campus. I'll call her "Kelly". (Her great-grandfather founded a huge national company that you'd all recognize, and her family still owned it.) XYZ was absolutely certain beyond question that "Kelly" would pledge their house just because of her name...before rush even began they were counting on landing her. Their members would openly talk about how great/prestigious it was going to be to have "Kelly" as a pledge. When the talk started getting around amongst sorority members, a lot of people made the assumption that "Kelly" wanted XYZ as much as they obviously wanted her.

Many other chapters were so certain that "Kelly" would end up going XYZ that she got dropped from a lot of chapters...and had pretty heavy cuts between third round and preference. Which was a shame, because she was a dream PNM even without the family name. Smart, gorgeous, funny, friendly...she could have had her pick of almost any house on almost any campus. She was oblivious to how much XYZ was talking her up behind the scenes, and that it was affecting her invitations back to other chapters.

"Kelly" ended up being invited to 2 chapters for preference - XYZ and ABC. ABC was one of the smallest chapters on campus at the time, and they unfortunately often experienced a lot of negative tent talk. (Guys would tell PNMs that the chapter was full of all "fat girls," even though that wasn't true and there were plenty of attractive women there. A few heavier women too, but who cares?)

"Kelly" ended up receiving a bid from ABC.

After Bid Day, "Kelly" came to the Panhel office very confused and said that she thought she had received the wrong bid. (Our whole exec board happened to be there, because we'd just had a brief meeting to wrap up some rush stuff.) We explained briefly how bid matching works and said that she hadn't received the wrong bid...she just matched up with ABC based on where they had each other ranked on their lists.

But...there is a happy ending...

I know you're probably thinking that "Kelly" was confused/upset because she wanted the wealthy, popular XYZ chapter, and assumed that she couldn't possibly have actually matched with the less desireable ABCs.

You'd be wrong though. Turns out that "Kelly" was confused and came to our office because of a little run in she'd had with some XYZs. They tracked her down on campus and assured her that she wouldn't be "stuck" with a bid from ABC...there must have been some mistake because she was #1 on XYZs bid list. Surely she should have matched with them! And they assured her that they would get the problem fixed for her.

"Kelly" was concerned because she had intentionally put ABC first...she didn't want to get that bid taken away and be forced to go XYZ. (She didn't know much about bid matching, and when XYZ told her that she had been their #1 she was worried that her own personal ranking might not matter.)

Not knowing that there were 2 XYZs in the room (remember - I said 2 of them were on Panhel exec w/me ), she also went on to say that she didn't care much for the XYZs because they never bothered to get to know her during rush...just wanted to talk about her family and certain "status" things. She felt like the ABCs were more interested in getting to know her as an individual person, not just as someone from a prominent family. Although I really did like and get along with the 2 XYZ members on exec with me, the look on their faces was priceless when "Kelly" was telling how relieved she was that she could stay with ABC and not get "stuck" with XYZ.

I don't think XYZ ever had a clue that the dirty rushing was going to backfire on them in the end. Its a shame that XYZ's actions affected Kelly's chances with other groups, but as far as I know she remained a happy, involved member of ABC until she graduated. (I graduated while she was a junior, and I recall she was still a member then...whether or not she left that chapter during her senior year, I don't know.)

[TSteven]

Originally Posted by NutBrnHair

One of my dear, older friends told me that when her brother arrived on the train to attend Ole Miss as a freshman in the 1930s, he got off the train wearing his Sigma Chi badge.

Was it a pledge pin or the actual badge? If it was pledge pin, that wouldn't be that dirty rushing at all. Currently, the NIC and many campus IFCs allow bids to be extend and accepted over the summer. I'm fairly certain that given the date (circa 1930s), this might have been true for Ole Miss as well. Now, if it was the Badge, then again, given the times, perhaps some sort of summer initiation might have been allowed.

[AlphaFrog]

Originally Posted by AngieWashU

According to the book Bound by a Mighty Vow, the reason the term "rushing" was coined was because for the sorority and fraternity members rushing to the incoming to trains to pin/pledge the members they wanted.

Originally Posted by AlexMack

Okay...that's wonderful. Not sure how that's a dirty rushing story.

I think she was responding to this:

Originally Posted by NutBrnHair

One of my dear, older friends told me that when her brother arrived on the train to attend Ole Miss as a freshman in the 1930s, he got off the train wearing his Sigma Chi badge.

[texas*princess]

Originally Posted by kathykd2005

That is seriously SCARY. When I was an undergraduate, there was a sister of a GLO that will remain nameless that stood outside a residence hall drunk, screaming at a PNM that "XYZ is the BEST! If you don't go XYZ, you won't have any friends." They definitely got a fine for that.

Wow.. that's insane. I remember doing the whole recruitment thing on the "other side"... it was so nuts... super early start, super late finish. I didn't even want to think about anything else but finding a few precious hours to sleep... I can't imagine being drunk during recruitment week

[AlphaFrog]

I remember one of the girls in my music class (before I rushed) telling my friend during class, a few weeks before rush, that she needed to rush, because she would write her a rec, and make sure that she gets in. I didn't know any different at the time, but I was thinking about this incident the other day. Wow.

Of course, this was non-competitive recruitment, and my friend was tall and thin, with blonde hair and blue eyes, had won a few pagents, and was nice as all get out too...she probably could have had her pick of chapters, anyway.

[kathykd2005]

Originally Posted by texas*princess

Wow.. that's insane. I remember doing the whole recruitment thing on the "other side"... it was so nuts... super early start, super late finish. I didn't even want to think about anything else but finding a few precious hours to sleep... I can't imagine being drunk during recruitment week

I would venture to say that this young woman had a lot of problems--she left school the year after that, if that is any indication...